How is this recession treating you? If you are employed, you may be completing projects with fewer resources or handling customer issues without enough staff. Somehow, it’s working, but you can’t help wondering how long you can keep up the pace.

Or perhaps you’re working at two jobs, piecing together the income you need for the mortgage and car payment but not putting aside anything for the future.

If either of these scenarios describes your situation, then hanging on may be about as much career planning as you feel capable of. That would make sense if we thought the recovery was going to go quickly. After all, anything is manageable for a few months, right?

Months, yes, but years? With economists predicting a long recovery, we should all be asking ourselves these questions:

1. Is my current situation sustainable?

2. Am I building for my future, treading water or falling behind?

3. What position will I be in when things turn around?

Let’s start with the question of sustainability. If you are working overtime without pay or holding down a job where heroic efforts are needed to complete the work, then you’re likely not in a sustainable situation. Likewise, if you are working several jobs and the process involves multiple daily commutes or superhero clothing changes in telephone booths … nope, not sustainable.

I don’t mean to impose my values on you but, sadly, I’m speaking from experience. There are only so many ways to burn the candle and I think I’ve found them all. Here’s what I’ve learned: No matter how organized you are, you can’t count on also being lucky. You or someone in your family will get sick; the car will break down; one of your employers will transfer you to a location 30 miles away.

Since a breakdown in the system is inevitable, the smart thing to do is to plan for it. Assume that you are over-working on borrowed time and ask yourself how you can start to lighten the load, regardless of what the economy is doing.

Big-picture solutions might be in order, such as changing your housing or taking in a roommate. When less money is needed to run your household, options will improve for job changes or post-recession planning.

If big-picture changes seem un-attainable, focus on easing the scramble a bit. Perhaps you could switch your part-time jobs to ensure they are near each other and your home. Reducing your hours at your primary job to something closer to 40 is another way to get back some of your time. Remember that every unpaid hour you work reduces your overall rate of pay. Hence, a manager who routinely works 60 hours a week instead of 40 is effectively taking a 33 percent pay cut.

When you make your current situation more sustainable, you will open the doors to potential solutions to the second question. That’s because you will free up resources of time and possibly money, which can be put to better use in securing your future.

That’s assuming, of course, that you use these resources to build your future. Not to be a finger-wagger, but here’s a thought-provoking question: If you were willing to put in unpaid hours for your employer, why would you not devote the same hours to your own career?

The likely answer is that you’re already stretched too thin. If you regain any hours by revising your current work structure, you’re likely to find they’ve already been allocated to something else, such as your family or home repairs. Or a full night’s sleep.

Even so, the combination of questions No. 2 and 3 should prove motivating. If you find that you are currently falling behind or only treading water, and that you’re likely to be in just about the same position when the recovery is finally under way, you really have to ask one more question: Is that OK?

Assuming the answer is no, here are a few career steps to consider to put yourself in a better position later: take classes in your field; join a professional association; learn a new skill such as public speaking or Web site development; strengthen your computer skills; start meeting with others in your field at a weekly or monthly networking event. The choices are almost endless, once you start thinking in terms of making yourself appealing to employers who will be hiring sometime down the road. For now, work on getting back some of your time, then build a career plan to follow for the next year or more while we all wait for the next chapter to unfold.

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